There was a time back when reality TV was still filmed in actual mansions and not in crumbling democracies that people used to care about approval ratings. Pollsters would trot out their little charts, cable news would plaster bar graphs across the chyron like an EKG of democracy itself, and voters would argue about whether a dip below 50% spelled doom for the man behind the desk. Those were quaint years, simpler years, when politics still pretended to be a popularity contest rather than a hostage situation.
Now? Approval ratings are the equivalent of checking your Fitbit after you’ve already had the heart attack.
Trump doesn’t govern like a man worried about what anyone thinks. He governs like a man convinced that “forever” is the only metric that matters. He isn’t running for another term—he’s running to erase the idea of terms. And here’s the kicker: none of his allies, even the ones with their own presidential ambitions, have the slightest interest in dissenting. They’re all in the bunker together, polishing the walls while pretending the ceiling isn’t collapsing.
Approval Ratings Are for Governments That Plan to Leave
Approval ratings make sense when leaders imagine a world after them. Presidents used to look over their shoulders at history. They worried about legacy. They thought in four-year chunks, maybe eight if the stars aligned. That’s why Gallup polls mattered: popularity meant a future, a shot at reelection, a place in the textbooks.
But Trump doesn’t need legacy. He needs permanence. He governs like a man who’s seen the script and decided he’s never walking offstage. Approval ratings are for sitcoms waiting to get renewed. This administration isn’t waiting for renewal—it already considers itself a series finale with no end credits.
The Silent Chorus of Enablers
What’s most telling isn’t Trump’s defiance of approval metrics—it’s the silence of the cast around him. Normally, you’d expect the Ted Cruzes, the Josh Hawleys, the Nikki Haleys of the world to start maneuvering, distancing themselves ever so slightly, laying the groundwork for their own White House auditions. That’s how American politics has always worked: kiss the ring until you can steal the throne.
But look around. Do you see distance? Do you see disobedience? Not even the polite kind, the “agree-to-disagree” eyebrow raise. Nothing. Everyone is welded to the project, eyes locked on the same horizon: a future where elections don’t matter because power doesn’t change hands.
These aren’t loyalists. They’re opportunists who’ve realized that the safest bet isn’t waiting for Trump to fade—it’s making sure he never has to.
Governing Like Elections Are Already Dead
The administration doesn’t behave like a team worried about winning another round. They behave like champions who retired the trophy. Every policy is an act of consolidation, not persuasion. Every DOJ indictment is a campaign ad without an opponent. Every ICE raid is less about law and more about spectacle: a performance of dominance designed not to please, but to normalize.
And the public? Too tired to notice. Too fragmented to care. One channel calls it fascism, another calls it “tough love,” and another is still running cooking competitions. The average American’s reaction to creeping authoritarianism is a sigh, a shrug, and maybe a meme.
The Distraction Economy
Part of the reason approval ratings don’t matter is that the news ecosystem itself has disintegrated. Once upon a time, three networks dictated the narrative. Now? Nobody gets their information from the same place. One household believes Trump is saving democracy, another believes he’s dismantling it, another doesn’t know because they’ve sworn off “politics” in favor of true crime podcasts.
You can’t measure approval in a country that doesn’t share a reality. Pollsters may as well be measuring the weather on Mars.
And here’s the dark twist: authoritarianism thrives in that fog. The lies don’t have to be good. They just have to be constant. They only need to drown the truth in enough noise that “approval” becomes meaningless, because by the time you’ve sorted fact from fiction, the government has already moved the goalposts.
A Party Without Succession
If this administration acted like elections were still relevant, we’d see strategy. We’d see factions preparing for the handoff. But that’s not happening. The entire Republican Party is operating as though succession is obsolete. They’re not jockeying for 2028 because they don’t think 2028 will exist in any recognizable form.
This isn’t about loyalty to Trump’s person. It’s about loyalty to the project: a system where Trump is the last election anyone ever has to win. The man is a prototype for a future where approval ratings, polling, campaigns—hell, even ballots—are just nostalgic relics, like landlines or Blockbuster memberships.
Lies as Policy, Not PR
Another reason approval doesn’t matter: the lies aren’t even aimed at persuasion anymore. Once, political lies were about shaping opinion. Now they’re about asserting dominance. The DOJ prosecutes enemies on charges that read like scripts from Trump’s Truth Social feed. ICE drags people into vans to prove a point, not to enforce a law.
This is government as intimidation, not government as administration. And intimidation doesn’t need 51% in the polls. It just needs silence from the streets.
The Country Circles the Drain
What’s left of democracy is circling the toilet bowl, and the people charged with unclogging it are too busy debating who’s to blame for the smell. Approval ratings? Worthless. Trust in institutions? Gone. Faith in elections? Erased. What’s left is apathy: the national mood of a population that assumes someone else will fix it, even as the last fixable pieces are being broken.
The lesson from history is clear: by the time people wake up to authoritarianism, it’s already calcified. By the time the polls show disapproval, the polls themselves won’t matter because the ballot box will be irrelevant.
The Last Campaign
This isn’t a campaign anymore. It’s an endgame. Trump governs like a man who knows he’ll never face another election—not because he’ll retire, but because elections themselves won’t survive. Approval ratings don’t matter to him because approval doesn’t matter to power that’s already decided it can’t be removed.
And the silence from his party isn’t cowardice. It’s clarity. They’re not preparing to outlive him—they’re preparing to inherit a system where outliving him isn’t necessary.
Epilogue: The Dead Metric
So stop talking about approval ratings. Stop talking about polls. Stop pretending this is still about popularity or momentum or strategy. This isn’t politics. It’s consolidation. It’s preparation for a country where no one ever runs again because no one ever has to.
And if you think you’ll know the exact moment when democracy dies—if you think the numbers will warn you—think again. By the time you see the disapproval spike, by the time the polls finally crater, by the time the approval rating headlines scream “America has turned,” the only thing left to approve or disapprove of will be your own silence.
Because the show isn’t waiting for your applause. They think it’s already been renewed forever.